DiRT Rally 2.0 Codemasters Tease New Happenings In DiRT Franchise

[Paul Jeffrey]

Codemasters have published a cryptic teaser about something interesting upcoming within the DiRT franchise...

Taking to Twitter earlier today, the British development studio have been busy teasing about the future of the DiRT franchise - but does it relate to DiRT Rally, or the more arcade offering of the DiRT series...

Interesting times ahead it sounds like, couple it be a new game, a substantial update to an existing release, the first fruits of the collaboration with Slightly Mad Studios or something entirely different... only time will tell.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1257218432464039937

The community letter in full can be read below:

From a simple ‘2.0’ in late 2018, to the game’s launch in early 2019, through four Seasons of epic content, and onto the Colin McRae: FLAT OUT Pack and Game of the Year Edition, DiRT Rally 2.0 has been an incredible journey that we’ve been on with you, our passionate rally and rallycross community. ​

​

As a team, we set out to create the definitive rally and rallycross experience for you, both in terms of what you can experience, and how you experience it. None of that would be possible without the support of you, the players, not just by playing DiRT Rally 2.0, but having the passion and willingness to be part of a true gaming community. You work with us to keep the game moving forward with patches, updates and improvements built around your feedback.​

​

From everyone who has contributed to DiRT Rally 2.0 here at Codemasters, we simply say: thank you for driving with us. ​

​

Whilst there are no plans for additional Seasons for DiRT Rally 2.0, some minor updates and surprises are planned. At this stage, the Rally team is now focusing on the future. By no means are we saying this is “the end” for DiRT Rally 2.0. Daily/Weekly/Monthly Challenges live on, Clubs are stronger than ever and you have plenty of esports action to look forward to. ​

​

Nothing’s moving in terms of your usual hangout spaces (the Forums, the fan-made Discord, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter) and your support team for DiRT Rally 2.0 are still very much here to help.​

​

Prepare to see something new roar to life in the world of DiRT, very soon. Developed by a separate Codemasters studio to the DiRT Rally team, we’re incredibly excited about what’s around the corner. We invite you to be part of a brand new experience, while also continuing to enjoy our definitive Rally offering. ​

​

As for the future of DiRT Rally? Well… we have a few things in mind. We have big plans, driven by a passionate development team, solely tasked with taking the Rally series to even greater heights. You won’t hear about that for a while, but when you do... oh boy, will you be excited for what’s coming. ​

​

Whether it’s our latest game soon to be revealed, or what comes next for Rally, we are incredibly excited to continue making DiRT the franchise for everything we all love about off-road racing. ​

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“If in doubt... FLAT OUT” ​

​

-the team at Codemasters​

Original Source: Codemasters

DiRT Rally 2.0 is available now on both console and PC.

Having issues with the game? No worries - start a thread in the Dirt Rally 2.0 sub forum here at RaceDepartment and let our super knowledgeable community help you out.

 

[RufGTI]

a different team......slightly mad......will be an arcade version of Dirt. So either Dirt 5 or Dirt Showdown 2

Not necessarily. Codemasters also has the development team that brought us last year's phenomenal new GRID game. As that game was released about half a year ago (and is pretty much dead by now), I could imagine that it is their turn.

 

[Terje Helle]

Interesting.. Hopefully it will support VR out of the box this time.
If it does it probably a instant buy!

 

[maranello78]

For me Dirt 2.0 was a step forward from Dirt rally 1, i'm ver y happy with sounds and physics, so for me i will buy more dlc to 2.0, maybe season 5-6 including cars like Renault 11 Turbo, Toyota Corolla, Peugeot 407 Wrc, Seat 124 2000, Ferrari 308 Gtb and many others, so if a game it's great why don't play 2-3 years living with dlc? Physics are the key, if it's good you'll have a great community at your side, but if it's just another arcade will be another forgotten game just played 3-4 months for childrens or casual gamers

 

[Ruy Horta]

Why am I completely unsurprised that this entire topic is joyless boomers mad that Codemasters might dare make a game that isn't a full-on sim?

I love sims, but sim racers are the most insufferable people on the planet. If you people actually cared about a turbonerd rally sim you'd turn off DR2 and just play RBR again. Codemasters was not, is not, and will never be a 100% sim studio.

DiRT was always simcade, NP
DiRT Rally is supposedly more sim.
DiRT Showdown - which I bought as a loyal customer, was a mistake.

In all niches you have those who claim to be the expert gatekeepers, also fine.
We all have our opinions and it looks like in this thread the nays outnumber the yeas.
It is not more insufferable than a bunch of fans, nothing about joyless boomers.

I like the old DiRT titles - not as much as DiRT Rallly, but still - I even enjoyed DiRT 4 once I got a feel for it.
That did not stop me from being cynical.

Someone made a comment about Slightly Mad Studios, well that wouldn’t be that bad for a DiRT type sim cade, not bad at all, actually better than some of the people inexperienced people working on DiRT Rally 2 who supposedly had forgotten some of the basics of the original - well expect for DLC content, but I digress.

Gamers in general and fans in particular have a long memory and when companies take them for granted they will will have suffer the consequences. Does that mean it is all fair, constructive and reasonable, hell no, but it is what it is. Codies been riding the DLC train with DiRT Rally 2 and GRID 2019 was anything but what the majority of its fanbase was expecting. The issues players had with DiRT 4 were never really addressed and the game was dropped too soon.

So that brings DiRT2021/22

Hell hath no fury as a gamer scorned!
Shakespeare v2.0

Sign of times.
Look at it in a positive way. Codemasters are having a much easier time compared to Electronic Arts or Bethesda. Talking about taking the heat from far more angry fans. Compared to this the sim racing crowd are very gentle, constructive and even loyal.

 

[Slapped]

To be blunt about it: Codies is an arcade/simcade studio mainly. Basically everything they've ever made besides Rally and 2.0 has been some kind of simcade at the very most. Colin Mcrae was arcade, Dirt was arcade, Grid was arcade, Onrush was extremely arcade, F1 is simcade, TOCA was the lower end of simcade. If anything, Rally and its sequel are bizarre aberrations on that front they made because the rally sim market was so utterly starved for content that the premier rally sim is a 2004 game that sold so godawfully it shuttered its studio and which has to be almost completely overhauled (to the point where a completely bespoke physics engine mods is all but essential) to actually be acceptable by modern standards.

I'm glad they did, but Codies is never going to make nothing but turbonerd rally sims. They aren't betraying the holy church of sim racing by making arcade/simcade titles, that's what they normally make. They will make an arcade dirt game, all of you will bitch and moan about it daring to exist, then they'll make Rally 3.0 and you'll bitch and moan about it and saying it's still not as good as RBR (a game you don't appear to actually play).

And then you'll buy it anyway.

This has happened like three times over and y'all still keep doing this lmao like when will you learn

I don't have problem with what Codemasters chooses to produce. It's my decision to buy or not to buy after all, but I do have a problem with their approach which currently appears to be to produce a content limited "demo" costing AAA money, and then force their customers to spend more money in order to buy the complete game via DLC. The F1 series is admittedly an exception to this.

That aside it's also true that the more the Codies veer towards arcade the less popular the titles are. In fact I dug up some Steam stats on relatively recent Codemasters games to demonstrate this:-

All charts indicate number of concurrent players, not copies sold. Also due to COVID-19 the numbers after February are likely to be skewed from the norm.

Most popular, as expected is F1 2019, and I will personally commit heresy on this forum by stating that I really enjoy the game. The scale of the chart is difficult to see, but it's in 2.5K increments, Black bars indicate times when free access was given

So a pretty healthy average of around 3000 concurrent players at any given time.

Next up DR 2.0

Around 1000 concurrent players on average, so not bad.

Now let's take a look at GRID

Oh dear. This game peaked at DR 2.0's long term average, and since then has struggled to get 200 concurrent players. Not even a free weekend could do much for this title.

Now let's take a look at the most popular pure sim title which is Assetto Corsa over it's 6-7 year lifetime.

Yeah, a pure simulation game is has a higher number of concurrent players than Codemasters most popular title - F1. Not only that, it's also still showing an overall upward trend after 6 years.

So I think I can pretty safely say that people are generally no longer interested in pure arcade racers, and much prefer something leaning towards simulation.

 

[Chrhun]

I think it's great that Rally racing games are somehow kept alive - if it requires a "DiRt FL4TouT 5" to make it, then... just get on with it.

The Dirt Rally 2.0 was a mess when it was released (no VR, the Oculus saga, oh man...) and it's still not perfect, but for a rally fan and a simracer like me it's quite a lot of fun in it's current state. No, it's not a perfect simulation, the FFB is mediocre, but it somehow conveys the speed and fun of rally racing reasonably well. If they make a Dirt Rally 3.0 at some point, I will buy it.

 

[azaralamouri]

Never played Richard Burns Rally but every single time someone spoke about it he/she made me regret not purchasing it (YET).

Why is nobody in the comment is optimistic about the title being a hardcore rally sim, say RBR2? or enhanced DR 3.0?

The fact that Slightly Mad Studios which are part of the team now are more experienced in physics simulation supports the idea of a real heavy rally simulator, doesn't it?

 

[azaralamouri]

"off-road racing"

“FLAT OUT”

 

[Ruy Horta]

Problem with Dirt 4 in particular was that it was marketed with having "simulation mode". But the handling was an understeering mess. If it had same kind of handling as Dirt Rally 2.0 (like the devs implied it will) it wouldn't have bombed so badly

The stage randomizer was an interesting concept, but also half baked. I hope they return to that and in improve it (drastically) some day. The concept itself was great, just that there was not enough variation in the resulting stages

Edit: 100% agree with Martin Fiala there, the Dirt 4 handling wasn't arcade either (unlike Dirt 3)... it was just failed attempt at simulation

IMO They dropped the ball on that big time, certainly based on the short sightedness of many of us gatekeepers who criticized the “repetitive” nature of the system.

I actually liked it, liked it a lot and just needed more tiles to bring variation.

IMO a mixed game with regular man made tracks and generated tracks, with more tiles - and more being added - would have made a perfect rally game. The standard tracks for their quality and benchmarking, generated tracks for variety - more tiles would being that variety.

DiRT 4 and its track generator was mainly dropped as a game because it was not the DLC generator that DiRT Rally 2 became.

Why create “endless” variety when you can sell tracks, including rehash tracks?

Still I’d really welcome the return of a more fleshed out track generator.

PS. Also DiRT 4 opened with the most boring tracks available in the game, bland colors, flat etc. The curve was really against selling the game early.

Ignoring the discussion about handling issues, the creative direction in DiRT 4 dropped the ball early. Have to say that the music was excellent, IMO some of the best game soundtracks I have ever heard.

 

[Ruy Horta]

hmmm.

Could the Flatout be a reference to the Richard Burns DLC and not a more simcade game, but an actual Richard Burns Rally 2 kinda title?

 

[gunner25]

ottimo. che sia arcade o sim non importa. sarà sicuramente un ottimo lavoro. L'importante è migliorare l'asfalto.

 

[AyrtJ97]

I don't have problem with what Codemasters chooses to produce. It's my decision to buy or not to buy after all, but I do have a problem with their approach which currently appears to be to produce a content limited "demo" costing AAA money, and then force their customers to spend more money in order to buy the complete game via DLC. The F1 series is admittedly an exception to this.

That aside it's also true that the more the Codies veer towards arcade the less popular the titles are. In fact I dug up some Steam stats on relatively recent Codemasters games to demonstrate this:-

All charts indicate number of concurrent players, not copies sold. Also due to COVID-19 the numbers after February are likely to be skewed from the norm.

Most popular, as expected is F1 2019, and I will personally commit heresy on this forum by stating that I really enjoy the game. The scale of the chart is difficult to see, but it's in 2.5K increments, Black bars indicate times when free access was given

View attachment 369607

So a pretty healthy average of around 3000 concurrent players at any given time.

Next up DR 2.0

View attachment 369617

Around 1000 concurrent players on average, so not bad.

Now let's take a look at GRID

View attachment 369618

Oh dear. This game peaked at DR 2.0's long term average, and since then has struggled to get 200 concurrent players. Not even a free weekend could do much for this title.

Now let's take a look at the most popular pure sim title which is Assetto Corsa over it's 6-7 year lifetime.

View attachment 369619

Yeah, a pure simulation game is has a higher number of concurrent players than Codemasters most popular title - F1. Not only that, it's also still showing an overall upward trend after 6 years.

So I think I can pretty safely say that people are generally no longer interested in pure arcade racers, and much prefer something leaning towards simulation.

I'm not so sure those numbers have nothing to do with the game being more arcad-ish or not. The problem with Grid 2019 is not the physics, as people expected it to be like its precedessor and tend to be an arcade game, but the content. The game lacks the possibility to do Endurance and multiclass races, which the first Grid had, you couldn't adjust the race length, it has some important graphic bugs, lack of real circuits, lack of MP lobbys from the beggining, you car is always scratched, a short career mode with no real progression feeling, a damage model which is way worse than the one from the very first Grid, the AI, well, what can I say about it, artificial? yes, intelligence? not too much, same goes to the Nemesis system...

 

[Michael Havlena]

Just got a 19.2 GB Dirt Rally 2 update...any relation?

 

[GRaFkiyv]

DiRT 5 / Showdawn 2

 

[Enerjex]

Dirt games follow a tick-tock release process, in that only every 2nd one is any good. Dirt 1 meh, Dirt 2 - Good, Dirt 3 - not horrible, but not great either, Dirt Rally - Good, Dirt 4 - Horrible, Dirt Rally 2 - Good, next - Horrible

If their Flat Out references refer to Bug Bear developing a game for them, it could be ok, but will be in early access for 5 years.

 

[JonnyCombat]

I predict a bro dude awesome dude, rally dude, dude sim. They'll say bro and dude constantly until your head explodes. So basically like Dirt 2 (or was it 3? I can't remember they all blur into one).

 

[Slapped]

Dirt games follow a tick-tock release process, in that only every 2nd one is any good. Dirt 1 meh, Dirt 2 - Good, Dirt 3 - not horrible, but not great either, Dirt Rally - Good, Dirt 4 - Horrible, Dirt Rally 2 - Good, next - Horrible

If their Flat Out references refer to Bug Bear developing a game for them, it could be ok, but will be in early access for 5 years.

Many people would say that that was the golden era of the title that would eventually become Wreckfest.

 

[Mikec87]

19.1 GB update!!! Stuff me mushrooms

 

[Ruy Horta]

Bugbear is part of THQ/Nordic
The last Flatout was made by Kylotonn.

Codemasters bought Slightly Mad Studios.
So if it is a new studio it is either Slightly Mad or some complete unknown.
Imo.

 

[Majuh]

I don't have problem with what Codemasters chooses to produce. It's my decision to buy or not to buy after all, but I do have a problem with their approach which currently appears to be to produce a content limited "demo" costing AAA money, and then force their customers to spend more money in order to buy the complete game via DLC. The F1 series is admittedly an exception to this.

That aside it's also true that the more the Codies veer towards arcade the less popular the titles are. In fact I dug up some Steam stats on relatively recent Codemasters games to demonstrate this:-

All charts indicate number of concurrent players, not copies sold. Also due to COVID-19 the numbers after February are likely to be skewed from the norm.

Most popular, as expected is F1 2019, and I will personally commit heresy on this forum by stating that I really enjoy the game. The scale of the chart is difficult to see, but it's in 2.5K increments, Black bars indicate times when free access was given

View attachment 369607

So a pretty healthy average of around 3000 concurrent players at any given time.

Next up DR 2.0

View attachment 369617

Around 1000 concurrent players on average, so not bad.

Now let's take a look at GRID

View attachment 369618

Oh dear. This game peaked at DR 2.0's long term average, and since then has struggled to get 200 concurrent players. Not even a free weekend could do much for this title.

Now let's take a look at the most popular pure sim title which is Assetto Corsa over it's 6-7 year lifetime.

View attachment 369619

Yeah, a pure simulation game is has a higher number of concurrent players than Codemasters most popular title - F1. Not only that, it's also still showing an overall upward trend after 6 years.

So I think I can pretty safely say that people are generally no longer interested in pure arcade racers, and much prefer something leaning towards simulation.

You're making the big mistake of only looking at the PC player numbers. It obviously looks wildly different on consoles.